As the centenary of the Battle of the Somme is commemorated, the Indian army also has good reason for remembrance.
Two Indian regiments took part in the first and only cavalry charge of the battle – between the High Wood and Delville Wood area – but were forced to retreat under heavy German fire.
When Brigadier M S Jodha shows villagers photographs of their ancestors’ names chiselled on war memorials thousands of miles away in France, many are overcome with emotion. “They are thrilled. Some shed tears,” he said, according to a report in The Sunday Times.
Jodha’s grandfather, Lieutenant-Colonel Aman Singh, at the Somme with the Jodhpur Lancers, was among those to arrive by ship at Marseilles.
Over 1 million Indian soldiers took part in World War I, making up a third of British colonial forces, and 74,000 perished in the Great War.
Hitherto, there has been little official recognition in India because of sensitivites about the colonial past.
However, that is set to change, according to the media report, thanks to a group of Indian officers who have drawn up plans for an annual remembrance day that will be marked with buttonholes of marigolds rather than poppies.
They will launch their campaign on July 14, 2016 – the centenary of the first great cavalry charge on the Western Front, which was led by an Indian regiment under a hail of machinegun fire during the Battle of the Somme.
The cavalry charge on 14 July, 1916, was conducted by two regiments, the 20th Deccan Horse and the British Seventh Dragoon Guards, who were supported by another Indian regiment, the 34th Poona Horse.
The Indians and British suffered 102 casualties and lost about 130 horses in the battle.
“It is still a matter of pride that an Indian cavalry regiment was involved. It did not achieve much. But it showed the great chivalry and spirit of Indian troops,” Lieutenant-General Aditya Singh, 69, a retired officer of the modern-day Deccan Horse and president of the Cavalry Officers’ Association, was quoted as saying in the Sunday Times report.
The India Remembers project is being organised by the United Service Institution of India (USI), in association with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
“For a long time these soldiers have been ignored and forgotten by the rest of the world and even in India because they were seen as part of the colonial past. Now there has been an acceptance of that part of history and a willingness to engage with it,” retired Squadron Leader Rana Chhina, 56, now the secretary of historical research at the USI, said as per the media report.
